“Literature and Football”, the Athletic Club Foundation’s cultural festival, kicked off on Tuesday at San Mamés with an engaging discussion between Enrique Vila-Matas, Paco Gómez and Marta San Miguel
Athletic Club Foundation’s cultural festival “Letters and Football” kicked off on Tuesday in the San Mames VIP Area’s Sala Este with a discussion between the writer Enrique Vila-Matas, the renowned photographer Paco Gómez and the novelist Marta San Miguel.
During the round-table discussion, the guests reflected on the relationship between football, literature and photography, sharing different perspectives on the power of images, memory and storytelling within the world of football.
During the conversation, the three panellists discussed around twenty photographs linked to the world of football. The variety of the photographs allowed for a fascinating conversation that was very much in keeping with the festival: art, literature, society and football naturally intertwined.
The power of images
With the conversation moderated by festival director Galder Reguera, the photographs on display were diverse and evoked a wide range of emotions.
Some images were iconic football moments, featuring Johan Cruyff (much to Vila-Matas’s liking) or Maradona (not much to Vila-Matas’s liking) as the main subjects.
Others were more artistic, such as Ramón Masats’ famous goalkeeping priest. And there were also more unusual ones, like Juantxu Rodríguez’s photograph on the festival poster, or the image of the Racing Santander’s team walking off the pitch in the middle of a 2014 Copa match against Real Sociedad, as they respectfully and resolutely called for their wages to be paid.
Marta San Miguel – a lifelong Racing fan – described footaball as “a fascinating tool for communication, a way of coming together”, as was proven by a walkout that united the team and the fans, and which may well be the start of Racing’s current golden era following their recent promotion.
Vila-Matas offered his literary perspective on everything, not without a very particular sense of humour, and confessed that football had always helped him appear a little less strange than he actually was.
He recounted some extraordinary stories, such as that of the Uruguayan Abdón Porte’s suicide on the pitch, and offered a reflection that applies equally to literature and football: “Genius lies in turning what others find so difficult into something easy.”
Paco Gómez analysed the photographs from a more professional perspective, whilst interspersing his remarks with touches of humour, and revealed a preference for “highly graphic images, those that speak for themselves”. In his closing remarks, he offered one of those phrases that linger in the mind: “Literature, ultimately, transforms words into images in one’s mind.”
‘Letters and football’
‘Letters and football’ is a cultural festival organised by the Athletic Club Foundation, with special sponsorship from the Meliá Bilbao hotel and support from the Spanish Government’s Ministry of Culture and Sport.
